The clinical core provides comprehensive care for 248 children, teenagers, and young adults with sickle cell disease (SCD) followed in the pediatric sickle cell clinic and 132 adult patients followed in the adult clinic at University Hospital. The clinical care component of patient services is a system of high quality, readily available medical and psychosocial care that responds to the patient's needs. Our multi-disciplinary approach integrates the skills of medical subspecialists, social workers, counselors, psychologists, and nurses to meet the patient's and family's needs. The majority of the pediatric patients in this program are born in the Greater Cincinnati area and are identified by newborn screening program. The Cincinnati Comprehensive Sickle Cell Center (CCSCC) continues to take a leadership role in insuring appropriate and timely follow-up for infants born in this area. Because of this, no baby born and screened in this area has been lost to follow-up. The clinical care component works effectively with the primary care provider and emphasizes a smooth transition into adult care. The clinical care component addresses educational, vocational and psychosocial aspects of patients with SCD. In addition, the clinical care component serves to promote both clinical and basic research that may benefit patients with SCD. The specific aims of the Clinical Core are 1). to provide comprehensive care to pediatric and adult patients with sickle cell disease (SCD), 2) to maintain a stable resource of patients for clinical and basic science research activities and to build, maintain and fully utilize an infrastructure which will provide the resources and support to conduct clinical research, 3) to provide training opportunities for residents, fellows, medical students, nursing students, as well as other health care professionals, and 4) to continue our already established collaborative relationship with the primary care physicians in the community and in the medical center to ensure that all patients with sickle cell disease receive the benefits of a comprehensive program regardless of the managed care program in which they are enrolled.